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Friday, 31 October 2014

My card today is for the challenge at CAS(E) this Sketch. I have used Uniko Stamps to create this. The little pink stars are actually left overs from Uniko snowflake dies that I saved a while ago now as I had a feeling they might come in useful some time.

I have used Wink of Stella on the stars and 'Wish' to add some sparkle but it is hard to see in the photo.

Tuesday, 28 October 2014

I found out on Friday that a friend was not well and I wanted to make a card for her straight away. I had seen the photo at Fusion and was going to go for a dramatic black and orange card (and probably will do before the challenge finishes!) but then I thought about the orange roses and decided this would make a better 'get well' card. I did some simple masking with these Uniko flower stamps. I do like the mix of the floral stamps with the grunge but to be honest this was a happy accident...at first used to cover up some very bad masking but I liked it so added some more!!

Monday, 27 October 2014

I am popping in today with a card that was inspired by the photo at Festive Friday. I used the colours and got the idea from the love heart wrapping paper. This is hubby's Xmas card. I apologise that the photo is not good but I was having problems with the Winter Sun and in the end ran out of time!

I know this looks like it only took me 5 mins to do but this is probably took over an hour. After spending ages trying to thread a needle (must have been years since I did this) I didn't have enough red cotton to finish my 3 kisses! I had to hunt for some more and found some in one of those hotel sewing kits but it wasn't the same red-I started again. We won't discuss my second attempt at threading the needle!! Then I couldn't get a photograph with out shadows. Boy for a simple looking card this caused me a lot of pain. Hope hubby likes it!!

Sunday, 26 October 2014

Today the lovely Marie is holding a surprise Birthday linky party for the very talented and creative crafter Shirley's Birthday. Her blog Shirley-bee's Stamping Stuff is full of inspiration and if you are not already aware of her inky delights I urge you to grab a coffee and have a browse around her blog now!

Very recently Shirley has designed her own stamps called The Bee's Knees that you can order through STAMPlorations. I love her new designs and am very lucky that Marie stamped this city girl for me to make a special card for Shirley's Birthday (these stamps were not on release when I made this card but Marie is part of the DT at STAMPlorations and was very kind to send me this one)

I wanted to stay CAS with my card and attempted to colour the city girl with a funky pink coat. I am sorry Shirley that the colouring is not so good but as you know it is not my 'go to' technique!! However I love this fabulous stamp and thought this sentiment was just such a perfect match.

Have a great day Shirley and I hope you enjoy your party!

If you want to make Shirley a card just link up your card here before the 9th November

I will enter this into the 'Anything Goes' challenge at STAMPlorations

Saturday, 25 October 2014

There is so much to inspire you here. The obvious is owls but I am not a fan so spent some time thinking of a different angle. Eventually I came up with the idea of using wool or some kind of material. Then when I saw the challenge at Curtain Call and Festive Friday and I went with twine! Plus the lay out came from the latest sketch at STAMPlorations And this is what I came up with:

A negative die cut with lots and lots of strings of twine stuck to the base card. It doesn't take as long as you think and I was happy to be finally using my Xmas twine which has been in my stash for nearly a year. I thought this little sentiment was perfect for this design (STAMPlorations Holiday Artsy set)

Maura is our Guest Designer this week and you can find her here on Splitcoast Stampers. Her cards are always very creative and we are pleased to have her joining us this week.

You can see a wonderful collection of cards from the DT here and then have a good look at our photo and get creating!

I will enter this into the following challenges:

Curtain Call-just getting in there on time although I made this card when the challenge came out!-burlap banner-see photo below

Festive Friday-one single bauble and lots of twine around gorgeous presents!

Thursday, 23 October 2014

I am here with my card for our new challenge at TIME OUT Challenges. It is our 'Inspired by Words' challenge.

Our words this time around are:

'Birds of a feather flock together'

You can use any of these words or the whole phrase to inspire you. Lots to go with here...we all love to use feathers but this week I have gone with 'birds'. I love my Uniko Studios Hummingbird stamp set and decided to water colour this and came up with a one layer card:

Our Guest Designer this week is Jill V who has only recently started here blog My Life in Paper. Her cards are stunning and if you don't already know her blog I would go and check it out!

So what does this phrase inspire you to create...need some extra inspiration? Then check out what our amazing DT have made this week here. Then take some TIME OUT and get crafty!!

Monday, 20 October 2014

The photo at Festive Friday really caught my eye this week. It is so clean and crisp. I have been wanting to play along since I saw it. I just wanted to go white with a touch of red but it took me ages to come up with an idea but here it is:

I made this out of some left overs from a DT card that a made using a negative die. The bauble die cut was just sitting on my desk. I decided to have a go at using my one and only stencil, embossing paste and glitter to cover the die. It really does give a wonderful sparkly texture. I added a thin strip of red glitter card and a mix of sequins and gems to finish. I ended up getting the clean and crisp look I was after (took me 10 days to get the idea!!) Great how scraps on your desk inspire an idea.

Thursday, 16 October 2014

It is time for me to remind you that there is still time to enter our CASE challenge at TIME OUT Challenges. For this challenge we have been CASEing this card from Heather.

Last week I made a very CAS card but today I have something a little different which I am hoping will show you that there are many different ways one card can inspire you!

What stuck me about this card was how the sun appears to be shining through the leaves. My eye is drawn to this immediately and I wanted to have a go at doing this. To be honest I really didn't know how to do this but gave it a go using water colour paints. I used red, orange and yellow paints and just went with the flow mixing more colours as I went, adding more water where I thought it needed. Then to create the light I just used a kitchen towel to remove some paint. I really have fun doing this with water colours as I have no idea what I am doing but just love the freedom it. Next I mixed up different green, brown and yellow paints and just sloshed them over some leaf stamps and stamped away. And here is the result:

I think I caught the light coming through the leaves as I had wanted but next time I would use smaller leaf stamps and more of them as Heather did. I added this sentiment (from STAMPlorations) as I thought it went with the warm feeling I hope this card gives.

Our DT have made some great reminders of how you can be inspired by Heather's card-check them out here

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

Are you ready to Make Your Mark for us at Addicted to Stamps and More? Your mark can be any kind of marker, pencil, water colour paint etc.

I am not the best at colouring using markers but decided to pull out my copics and give it a go!

Check out my new watermark! This was designed by Addicted to Stamps owner and my very dear friend Kylie. If you want your own watermark check out her blog here for details. She got Big Ben in there for me! I need to learn how to re-size it a bit but wanted to show you all today.

I tried to channel my inner Nonni who introduced me to copics and gave me lots of pointers. Here I used copics on the boxed bloom stamp from STAMPlorations and also used the lay out from their sketch challenge. The background I found in my scrap-I had been trying out embossing on top of water colouring about a year ago and didn't like this but when I added it to this card, I changed my mind!

Sunday, 12 October 2014

Yesterday I had a day when I just felt like getting out my water colours and joining in a few challenges. My card is very CAS today and has water colouring that had to be quite detailed to get the look I wanted. First the card then the huge amount of inspiration that was drawn on to create it!

First off I used the photo from Fusion. I immediately loved the bunch of flowers in the photo and used the stunning splashes of blue, green and yellow as my starting point. I have used all these colours in my flowers, gradually blending from green, to blue and yellow. This was not my normal splash it on water colour painting but very specific and subtle. I love the texture of the water colour card and this was a nod to the wood grain in the photo.

Thursday, 9 October 2014

It is time for me for our CASE challenge with your own twist at TIME OUT Challenges. For this challenge we are very lucky to have the opportunity to CASE one of Heather's card. Heather's blog Bits and Pieces is full of creative and stunning cards and we have this gem to CASE today:

And here is my CASE using the colours, leaves and Autumn theme as inspiration and adding my own CAS twist:

This week our Guest Designer is the very creative and fun Carol. I just love Carol's cards and her blog Just Me:c is full of inspiring ideas and always fun to read. She is one of the most generous people in blogland always there to give an encouraging comment!

So what does Heather's card inspire you to make? If you need some more inspiration, check out the wonderful cards our DT have created here

Tuesday, 7 October 2014

Today I am very excited as I am Guest Designing for CASology. I was amazed when I won their 'Fluttering' challenge last week and when asked by Melissa if I wanted to be their GDT for this week it didn't take me long to say 'Yes please!'

The code word for this week is:

and here is my take on this:

I have added Wink of Stella to my splatter and sentiment but it is hard to see in this photo. Purple glitter card....was this made for me!!!

Don't forget to check out what the DT have made for this challenge here

Monday, 6 October 2014

I really liked the sketch this week at CAS(E) this Sketch but no ideas came to mind until I saw the colour scheme at The Card Concept-my card is clean and graphic. I had a ping moment and this is what I created:

This was very quick to make but I have to say it makes me smile but would be great for so many special people.

Saturday, 4 October 2014

Our Guest Designer this week is Hannelie. Hannielie is so very creative and if you are not aware of her blog Desert Diva I urge you to visit her blog and I guarantee you will be inspired!

I only have one stencil and using that I came up with this:

I was crafting with my friend Marina last weekend and she has some embossing paste. I have never used this and was eager to have a play. Marina was very patient with me and taught me how to use this. I used my stencil and the paste to cover some white card. When I got home I was a bit stuck what to do with it. Then I came up with the idea of die cutting it. I thought it might all crack up but it works really well.

I just layered up some plain 'happy' dies and stuck by stencil/embossing paste 'Happy' on the top. Used my fav linen embossing folder to add more texture. I love how this turned out. Used my fav Xmas colour combo to stamp my Uniko snowflakes and I have another Xmas card to add to my collection.

Our DT have all come up with fabulous examples for you, check them out here. We are sponsored by Stamp Art Designs-you could win some of their fab digis!

Friday, 3 October 2014

My card today is for the photo challenge at Festive Friday. First my card then I have to tell you the little story behind its invention!!

I have been wanting to make a card for this challenge since I saw the photo last week but no ideas came to mind. I couldn't seem to get the wood grain out of my head but then today the reminder post came up and I had a ping moment....or so I thought. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. However I started making my card then thought...I think I have made this before and yes I had here admittedly using a lighter green ink. So what to do??? I stared at the card and thought how can I change this so I can enter it as I still loved the design and thought it was so right for the photo. Another ping moment came....add dimension. So I stamped the garland again on scrap card and fussy cut it out just adding one gem. I added these garlands just above and below the ones stamped on the main card using foam pads. And changed the sentiment.

I thought this was a little lesson for myself-how to refresh a design you love using different design elements. And I think I like this design better!

I have to say I am slightly concerned that my memory is so bad I thought I had had a brand new idea!!

Thursday, 2 October 2014

Today I am here to remind you that there is still time to join in our challenge at TIME OUT Challenges'STAMP with an optional twist of Apples'

All you have to do is include stamping on your project and add an apple if you want....prizes up for grabs!

Here is my card-with no twist just good old stamping!

This card was inspired by 2 challenges.

First up the photo at Fusion this week caught my eye and I have been thinking of what to do for this since it came out last week. I don't have any sunflower stamps but wanted to use yellow flowers in some way as I thought it would be a refreshing change from Autumn colours. Then I saw Kimberly's card at Muse this week and had a ping moment! I loved the design of Kimberley's card and used this as my starting point but decided to go one layer.

I have used a variety of flower stamps here and actually added a few of my own black lines so the card flowed better (to my eye!)

Wednesday, 1 October 2014

I have heat embossed a leaf stamp in vanilla white and then water coloured the leaf using a mix of oranges and yellows. As I like to do with water colours, I just went with the flow adding extra colours and water until I liked the look.

This week we are very pleased that Stamp Art Designs are again our sponsors.They have some fabulous digis, check out their store here.

Our DT have all made wonderful projects to inspire you and you can check them out here

Now it is your time to get inky. I am looking forward to seeing what this photo inspires you to make.